


love, lost.

by royalworldtraveler



Category: Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, I'm Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 16:03:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14405628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royalworldtraveler/pseuds/royalworldtraveler
Summary: Their heads hung low. Low in mourning, low in sorrow, and low in love, lost, just as a group of young, innocent boys on one lonely island, months ago.





	love, lost.

Ralph stood on the outskirts of Castle Rock. He recognized Samneric easily, what with their wiry frames and inability to keep still. When they moved, they moved as one.

His heart sunk. They were part of Jack’s tribe now.

The paint on their faces didn’t suit them.

Noise erupted from beyond the guards. Their signature chant, faint, a culmination of littlun and bigun voices, the latter having dropped during their months on the island. Jack was no exception to the laws of nature – his voice had deepened, too. Ralph couldn’t help but note that the change in his voice mirrored the steady change in the rest of him.

_“Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”_

Unease settled in the pit of his stomach. Nevertheless, he found his way through the thicket and crawled to the edge of the entryway. Letting out a sharp breath, Ralph grimaced at the scrape of thorns against the tear in his side. He covered the pain with his hand, feeling a familiar warmth coat the tips of his fingers. A slur of muttered swears passed through his lips. Then,

“Samneric.”

No reply.

“ _Samneric!”_

They turned at last, the grip on their spears tightening. 

“Ralph?” came their shaky reply.

He pushed himself up, careful not to further tear his skin. “Yes, it’s me.”

They looked to each other, their eyes asking a clear question: _What do we do?_

Ralph signaled for them to keep quiet, bringing his finger to his mouth, as if to say _Keep quiet, don’t yell._

“Ralph, you—”

“—oughtta go.”

A beat. Then, “What are they going to do to me?”

Even with their lack of reply, he knew he was in trouble. He had known since the groups formed, since Simon was murdered, since he himself had speared a pig and felt a mad kind of rush in his veins.

More ruckus from past the guards as a boy shrieked with laughter. Still no reply from Samneric.

“Please,” Ralph whispered. Harsher, “I have a right to know.”

The twins looked to each other once more.

“They – we – are hunting you tomorrow.” Sam looked to his bare toes, guilt evident in the crease of his brow.

Ralph closed his eyes. He willed himself to take a steadying breath, then another. _Hunted tomorrow._ The tear in his side and the soreness of his feet were at once light-years away. _Well,_ he thought. That was that. The island was only so big, his legs could only take him so far, and he was vastly outnumbered. What was one skinny boy to twenty blood-thirsty savages? There was no way around it. Tomorrow, Ralph would be dead.

He weighed his options. Tomorrow, hunted. Hide. Run. Fight back.

Then, the clear winner at once consumed his thoughts, every fiber of his being. _Martyrdom._

“Take me to them,” he spat out.

“What?”

“Take me to them,” Ralph repeated, already moving out of his perch.     

“They’ll _kill_ you.”

He shook the twigs from off of his ratty cloth bottoms.

“Let them.”

 

 

Jack chewed on his meat from his pedestal. The tribe was arranged in a lazy half-circle surrounding the fire pit. A few stood close, carving hunks of meat from the roasting pig. The rest sat on logs or on the ground, legs crossed, faces painted, smiles wide.

The first to notice Ralph’s presence was a littlun. He dropped the slab of meat in his hands and pointed.

As the hunters scrambled for their spears, Samneric let loose their grip on Ralph’s biceps and stepped forward.

“Don’t,” Sam shouted.

“Let him speak,” Eric finished for him. “He just wants to speak.”

Jack wiped the hair from out of his face, stepped down from his high log, and pushed his way past the boys to the front of their congregation. He was surprised to see that Ralph met his gaze with a look of equal ferocity.

Jack had the obvious advantage. Twenty-something boys and their spears completely at his disposal, and yet, Ralph had the same confidence in his eyes as he did on day one of his chiefdom.

The shy liking the two exhibited months before had crumbled.

“Well,” Ralph began. “’Lo, there, lads.”

The boys before him were too afraid to speak.

He cleared his throat, took a step forward, and addressed the crowd. “Do you remember the first time we assembled? Me and Piggy, we–”

He didn’t fail to notice how some boys tensed up at his name.

“We blew that conch, and watched as you littluns – and biguns – trailed in from all sides of the forest. We were all so…so _scared._ Some of you were sopping wet, and we were all so clean and small. I can’t begin to comprehend how long we’ve been out here, but you’ve grown, the lot of you. I’m probably fifteen now. Even you, Jack, you’ve grown. D’you think you can still sing C sharp?”

The frown on Jack’s face deepened.

Ralph went on. “We’re older now. Different. And some of us...”

The boys picked up on what Ralph was going to say. It could have gone unspoken, but Ralph knew that if there was a time to speak candidly of what they all had done, it was now.

“We murdered Simon. We murdered Piggy. I don’t care what anyone says, or how anyone excuses it, not anymore.”

Unease settled in among the boys. Some squirmed at his words.

“Quiet,” Jack bit. He must have sensed the effect Ralph was having on the boys, too. “Is that what you came here to do? Point fingers?”

Ralph let out a quiet, nervous laugh. “I know what you’re all planning to do tomorrow,” he replied. “I know that I’m past saving, because I know that this savagery is what you’ve resorted to. I know, but I refuse to accept…I refuse to believe that you want to slaughter me, or that you _wanted_ to slaughter Simon or Piggy, just the same way you slaughter a pig for food. Don’t you remember a time before the hunt? Before the dance, before the chant, before the rituals, before _the beast_?

“Do you remember when we built our first hut – our first shelter? The pride we felt at having finally done something – God, you’d think we’d conquered a mountain. Don’t you remember how connected we all were, how strong in brotherhood and companionship? And now, here you are. Planning to murder me, too.”

The boys shuffled and flushed guiltily.

“I built those huts for _you._ I held those meetings for _you._ I did the best I could as _your_ chief, and kept that fire going so we could all be rescued. All of us, together. And now…now, you want to kill me.”

He let the full gravity of his words hang in the air. He let himself process them, as well.

Then, surer than ever before, “I won’t be a part of your hunt. I won’t be a squealing pig up for slaughter. I stand here as a fellow boy, a fellow English civilian, and a friend. If you want to live this way, go ahead and do it. Kill me.”

Ralph didn’t flinch as he stared straight into the eyes of the boys he once knew. They were full of doubt, full of questions and apprehension; he could tell by the way they wrung their hands and looked at one another that they were torn.

Jack grimaced as he looked at the boys before them. He felt a pit forming in his stomach, twisting and churning and leaving a sense of dread inside. He watched as some of his hunters lowered their spears.

Ralph’s gaze met his own. There, he found something like hope in his eyes, soft and inviting.

He tightened the grip on his spear, walked the few steps it took to reach his old friend, and in one smooth motion, dragged the sharp end of his stick into Ralph’s throat.

 

As Jack stared down at the body below him, he felt the weight of the deed in his right hand – his trusty spear, stained once more with blood.

He rubbed his fingers together, the flesh slippery and soft.

He turned to face his boys.

Their heads hung low. Low in mourning, low in sorrow, and low in love, lost, just as a group of young, innocent boys on one lonely island, months ago. 

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know who is going to read this, if anyone. Is there even a Lord of the Flies fandom out there? We shall see. 
> 
> This was for my English class. 
> 
> comments and kudos always appreciated, I suppose :)


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